Module 1 Case

DOI: 10.1111/peps.12220

B O O K R E V I E W S

The conscious leader: 9 principles and practices to create a wide-awake and productive workplace

Shelley Reciniello

Greenwich, CT: LID Publishing, 2014, 184 pages, $24.99, hardcover.

Theauthorofthisbookappliesapsychoanalyticapproachtoexaminecommonissuesandproblemsthatwearelikelyto

encounter as we work with others in organizational settings. Her basic contention is that most of us are not adequately

aware of the way our unconscious needs, fears, concerns, and hang-ups are holding us back from being fully awake and

more productive at the workplace. She states, “The unrecognized issues of each employee come out to play whenever

people work together. These internal factors interact with other workers’ issues…Within companies, this is why things so often go wrong that shouldn’t” (p. 25).

Although it is not explicitly stated, the appropriate audience for the book could well be any employee or manager

who is interested in improving their ability to perform, to work with, or to lead others in a more conscious, insightful,

and enlightened manner. The author supports her various arguments by providing colorful examples from her own

consulting experience. The book is organized in chapters that describe the “most important psychological phenomena

that undermine companies and leadership every day. The underlying truths about human beings and their behavior as

well as the antidotes to these phenomena will be presented” (p. 21). Each chapter has an attention-getting title (e.g.

Chapter 1: “Why everything goes wrong when everything seemed right: Secret motivations and hidden agendas”; or

Chapter 5: “When people regress in groups: Teams or gangs?”) followed by a pithy quote (e.g. “Insanity in individuals

is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche” (p. 83), followed by a

brief statement of the underlying psychological principle to be discussed in the chapter (e.g., “Psychological Principle

#2: Self-delusion is the single biggest trap for a leader” [p. 39]), followed finally by a full discussion supported by colorful

examples. The book is consistently clear and well-written, user friendly, and a pleasure to read.

Reciniello compellingly compares behavior in organizations to a theatrical performance in which what we see being

acted out on stage is only part of the show, with the other equally important performance taking place backstage. She

maintains that in the United States in particular, a behavioral approach to explaining performance based on measure-

ment and control has become the predominant model. This approach, she contends, has been taken too far, and it needs

to be rebalanced in order to fully account for “how people work, how organizations thrive, and how leadership suc-

ceeds” (p. 30). To do this, we need to look behind the curtain. The author states that we need to “become wide-awake

and…stay wide-awake and alert to business practices that are not conscious” (p. 31). Specifically, she convincingly con- tends that managers need to make sure that employees understand why they are being asked to do something, and

that, “It should be a well-conceived, conscious reason or it shouldn’t be done at all” (p. 32). Moreover, managers must

receive and provide feedback, and employees should be encouraged to voice what works and what does not “without

fear of retribution” (p. 32). We as managers should not be afraid to ask tough questions “about systems or policies or

procedures that don’t really make sense to [us]” such as “why, what for, and why not” (p. 32) or to admit that we do not

know or understand something. We should also use all of our “senses to take in information” (p. 33), and we need to

listen actively.

Personnel Psychology. 2017;70:505–513. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/peps c© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 505

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Reciniello stresses the importance of having self-knowledge and knowing more about how we are perceived by oth-

ers at work so that we can become more aware of our “Achilles heel” and that which we may otherwise “remain blind

to” (p. 33). To aid in this process, the author provides a comprehensive 13-page Personal Coaching Questionnaire in

the book’s appendix. (Sample questions include: “What kind of stories do people tell about you? In your relationship

with people, what are you most proud of? What would you like to change or improve about yourself?” (p. 172). She

examines how our various defense mechanisms and hang-ups about the past can become dysfunctional and eventu-

ally even define our personalities, stating, “We all carry things with us that no longer apply to our lives yet we act like

they do…We suffer neurotically when we react to something that no longer pertains to our lives as though it were happening now” (p. 41), and she urges us to get our “own psychological house in order…to become a conscious leader” (p. 44). The author also offers a set of common sense “easy wins” to avoid “self-sabotage” (p. 46), including the impor-

tance of coming to meetings on time and not rudely keeping others waiting, living up to commitments, avoiding being

a negative person, and gossiping. She advises her readers to consider the secrets we may be keeping from others that

“might involve a gap in knowledge that feels embarrassing…and think about steps [we] can take to remedy the prob- lem” (p. 53–54). She provides an interesting review of the way various defense mechanisms such as denial, repression,

projection, identification with the aggressor, displacement, intellectualization, and regression can manifest themselves

at work, making the point that these defenses that were once useful for us can become dysfunctional over time espe-

cially as we interact with others who, of course, have their own defenses operating. Speaking to us as leaders, Reciniello

states, “When [we] put [our] psychological house in order, when [we] model introspection and ownership of issues and

defenses…teams can become awake and productive” (p. 67). Additional noteworthy issues dealt with in this work include the often troubling and dysfunctional ways that the

social dynamics in the office frequently tend to repeat and mimic the family dynamics of parent–child or sibling rela-

tionships. The author sensibly states, “You are …well aware that people come to business carrying a lot of baggage. When you are a leader, you have to help them check those bags. They need to unpack them somewhere more appropri-

ate than the workplace” (p. 82). Reciniello also examines the way that people often regress in group settings and offers

suggestions for “how to create progressive not regressive groups” (p. 89), noting that, “As a leader, you can model the

kind of productive collaboration you would like your organization to have” (p. 90). She addresses the problems that

organizations may run into with their diversity initiatives; tackles the importance of mastering the destructive forces

of conflict, anger, and the misuse of power as we engage others; and looks at the need to constructively manage change

in our lives and at work.

As should be apparent by now, this rather short work sheds light on a broad array of important and complex issues

at work, and most readers should come away from the book feeling that their time has been well spent. The book offers

many sensible suggestions for how we can become individually and interpersonally more effective at work. One note-

worthy risk of this kind of work is that some readers who lack the professional training may be tempted to act like ama-

teur psychoanalysts by engaging in inappropriate diagnoses either of themselves or their colleagues. Moreover, the

book, especially when dealing with some of its deeper issues such as our potential defense mechanisms and manifes-

tations of transference and countertransference at work, is helpful in terms of enhancing our understanding; however,

it is less useful when it comes to figuring out how to take corrective action to curb our neurotic impulses, especially

without the help of trained professionals. The danger is that some readers may not realize this work’s or their own

limitations in this regard.

Ira J. Morrow

Associate Professor of Management

Department of Management, Lubin School of Business,

Pace University, New York, NY.

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DOI: 10.1111/peps.12221

Predictive HR analytics: Mastering the HR metric

Martin R. Edwards Kirsten A. Edwards

London: Kogan Page, 2016, 456 pages, £29.99, Paperback.

The world of human resources (HR) is witnessing an unprecedented change. The field, which was once known for its

focus on soft values, is now required to deal with hard data. With the dawn of big data and analytics, HR professionals

aretaking upanalyticstoswiftlytreadthepathofadding considerablestrategic value. TheHRworldisbuzzing withthe

transformative potential of HR analytics. This field has developed at the intersection of computer science, engineering,

decision making, and statistics and assists in organizing, analyzing, and making sense of uncertain situations. It is being

recognized as a must-have capability for the HR professionals, which brings value for the organization. The book is

quite timely given the buzz around analytics, especially predictive analytics.

This book differentiates itself from others books on the topic by addressing an important gap for a manual by being

a hands-on guide. The book helps in not just know-what and know-why of HR analytics but also know-how to perform

analytics. It satiates the need of a straightforward book that demonstrates how to carry out basic predictive analytics

to unleash the real potential that exists in recognizing associations between factors that are key drivers of employee-

related outcomes. The usage of HR analytics as provided in the book ranges from diversity management to recruitment

and training. It does all of this with the help of SPSS. By the end of the book, readers who have practiced with hands-

on data provided by the authors will be in a position to use their analytical capabilities and to perform key predictive

analysis.

The book is suitable for a wide variety of audiences. It acts like a tutor to anyone aspiring to explore HR analytics as

a career option, HR professionals in organizations doing some basic work in the field of analytics, and professionals in

the MIS team. Even students who want to understand analytics and want to see real-world application of statistics will

find it useful. There are books that show how to run analyses with SPSS and others that discuss HR analytics, but this

book is a perfect blend of HR analytics with statistical analysis that none of the earlier books have attempted. It also

provides a brief overview of related softwares—SAS, R, Stata, JASP, and so forth.

The book is highly useful as it provides step-by-step guidance to the reader by first explaining concepts/practices of

HR, highlighting their significance, and demonstrating the power of data to make those functions more effective and to

contribute to business. Chapters are well organized to ensure that readers not very familiar with the concepts of HR

discussed in the cases also get a basic understanding of it before moving ahead with statistical analysis. Case studies

of different functions of HR are quite informative and help the reader to understand the holistic picture of real issues

and to demonstrate the usefulness of HR analytics. The book is authored by Martin R. Edwards and Kirsten A. Edwards;

Martin specializes in the field of HR analytics, and it is evident in the way the book has been written. It is focused on the

execution of analytics, and accordingly, the only section in which academic literature is referenced is at the end when

the authors are critiquing one method of mediation analysis and suggesting another. The rest of the book is based on

the authors’ own experience and understanding and does not contribute to or utilize any theory.

The book is likely to be successful in convincing the reader about the bright future of HR as it embraces appropriate

use of HR analytics. The authors convince the reader with logic and by demonstrating the evidence of positive impact

of HR analytics on HR outcomes and ultimately on business outcomes. It is organized well as it introduces the topic

and relevance of predictive analytics in the first chapter, demonstrates how to convert data into a workable format to

analyze with SPSS in the second chapter, and introduces statistical analytical techniques in the third chapter. To gain

better understanding of what the book is to offer, readers should go through these chapters in sequence and should not

skip. The next six chapters are focused on performing analytics in various functions of HR with the help of case studies

and data. Here, the authors demonstrate the ways in which HR-related data can be analyzed or modeled. The best thing

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aboutthesechaptersisthattheynotonlydemonstratetheperformanceofthestatisticalanalyses,buttheyalsoexplain

why a particular test was used and how to interpret the results. Going through all of the cases will certainly enhance

the understanding and expertise of the reader; however, readers may choose their preferred area and read the chapter

most close to their function as these chapters are not really interrelated. The closing chapter provides an introduction

to more advance statistical techniques to develop conceptual understanding of the potential of HR analytics.

Even though the case studies and live data provided by the authors are engaging, the authors could have done a

better job by including role plays and by making the reader think and respond via those role plays before going ahead

with the analysis and explanations. The authors have attempted at some points to include scenarios and conversations

betweentheCEOandtheHRprofessional,butthesedonotstimulatethereadertothinkabouttheissuesorthefeeling

of getting up and doing the analyses. It looks more like someone else’s problem or job. The authors also could have

highlighted how to get buy-in the organization, teething issues that crop up at the time of adopting this approach to

making decisions, and examples of how the outcomes have helped organizations and the HR function to leapfrog in

their profession. The front cover of the book could have been better used to intrigue the minds of the readers rather

than opting for a plain orange page with a picture of tunnel. Still the authors have done justice and they have delivered

on their promise of coming out with a how-to-do book on HR analytics.

This book is a blessing for people who want to see and understand how HR analytics work and why the hype exists

about HR analytics. It demonstrates the potential of data for people and practices decision making. It helps one under-

stand HR, statistical analytics, and HR analytics better to promote actually create value for the organization.

Shweta Jaiswal Thakur

Doctoral Student

Management Development Institute,

Sector 17, Gurugram, Haryana, India.

DOI: 10.1111/peps.12222

Madness and leadership: From antiquity to the new common error

Savvas Papacostas

Edward Elgar Publishing: Northampton, MA, 2015, 243 pages, $120 hardcover.

Some will think it fitting that I read and reviewed this book during the 2016 presidential election season in the United

States of America. “leaders must possess certain traits…namely, a paranoid predisposition, a mastery of language and an extroverted personality” writes Papacostas (p. 207) in the postscript—and this provides a nice abridged summary of

his thesis about leadership. The purpose of the book is to offer the learned theory of a very bright author. That purpose

has been fulfilled in a short book that carries through many themes.

Physically, the book is a handy size that can be carried easily and is written in chapters that build upon one and

other. It is short and pithy, and it might be the only book in your collection with the noted leader Emperor Caligula (first

century AD) on the cover.

The author, a professor at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, is a physician and psychiatrist. He is

American trained with clinical professorships at University of Rochester Medical Center and Columbia University

Medical Center. Not surprisingly his interest in leadership takes a psychiatric-clinical tack. It is therefore apt that the

concept of madness comes first in the title and leadership second. For clinical psychologists, the book can be read in

the order of the chapters. For most industrial–organizational or applied psychologists, a more informative order of

BOOK REVIEWS 509

reading is the following: postscript, chapter 6 (abnormal behavior) and chapter 8 (psychotic disorders and paranoia).

Then read the book from the beginning as the postscript and chapters 6 and 8 will have provided a sufficient founda-

tion for benefiting from the rest of the book.

There are specific facets of the book that took me by surprise. This is mostly due to my expectations regarding epis-

temology and philosophy of science. There is an unfortunate tendency early on in the book to depend on authoritative

sources for evidence. A large problem is that of falsification. If I make a statement, that is if I propose a scientific hypoth-

esis, it must be testable and subject to falsification using currently available methods. Given a Freudian outlook, I might

report that my superego has taken over for a specific period of time. How can that statement, hypothesis, be tested

and potentially falsified? It cannot. This is an example of the problem with relying of the citing of authority figures for

scientific knowledge. In the writing, there is a tendency to create dichotomies, perhaps showing a difference between

the study of individual difference and the framework of healthfulness/pathology so frequently employed in medical

epistemology and practice.

Further, it appears that the book was written using the medical model. Signs or symptoms are a consequence of

underlying causes. Signs and symptoms guide but the causes must be treated. Contrast this to behaviorism that views

only manifest behavior and would therefore treat only manifest behavior—or to cognitive theory that posits things

that are not directly observable but might be pliable and changeable with retraining. Take your choice of models but

consider the text carefully. The large benefit of the book is it offers numerous hypotheses to be tested in current times

with current methods using current leaders.

In progressing on this book review, I kept a list of leaders that the author offered as examples of paranoid or at least

paranoid-personality leaders. That list is long—from Japanese Prime Minister Abe to long-dead leaders such as the

Pharaoh Amenhotep, Joan of Arc, Alexander the Great, Pericles, and Spartacus. The task of diagnosis without meeting

the patient strikes me as very difficult or perhaps impossible. This returns us to the problem of falsifiability. How can

the hypothesis that Spartacus was at least a little paranoid be tested? It cannot.

Let us consider the case of Pericles. We know Pericles from his speeches, especially his funeral oration, and primar-

ily from the historian Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 BC). Could we say he was paranoid from the writings of Thucydides

in his The History of the Peloponnesian War? Thucydides writes of the ability of Pericles to change the attitudes of the

Greek citizenry after military loss and in time of peace. Pericles accomplishes this not through paranoid speech blam-

ing outside influences or other paranoid-like imagery but through a rational appeal to the Greek man in the street. Of

course, this is just one leader from the past written about by one author, Thucydides, translated in modern times by an

English speaker (Thucydides, Livingston 1960) and interpreted by me. I am not an expert in the Greek of the time of

Thucydides.

The book is happily free of factual errors save for the incorrect identification of the 1980 presidential election in

America as 1979. Although the book mentions some recognized leaders in the study of leadership, it does not focus

on any one theory of leadership. Theories of leadership studied by psychologists and management experts could be

integrated into a second edition of the book to make for a widely applicable graduate school supplement.

Malcolm James Ree

Professor of Organizational Leadership

Our Lady of the Lake University,

San Antonio, TX.

REFERENCE

Thucydides. (1960), The history of the Peloponnesian war (R. Livingstone, Trans.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Original work published ca. 400 B.C.)

510 BOOK REVIEWS

DOI: 10.1111/peps.12223

The Cambridge handbook of meeting science

Joseph A. Allen Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock Steven G. Rogelberg

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 808 pages, $155 hardcover.

There is a great deal to discuss here (given the 700 odd pages of content in this title), so rather than getting right to it I

am going to spend some time dithering about with (helpful?) metaphors:

• Remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo gets plugged into a computer and comes out purporting to know kung fu (but then needs hands-on training to really get it right)? That is this book, but the computer is a book and kung fu

is meeting science and hands-on training is, well, that is still hands-on training—practice, research, theorizing, or any

combination thereof.

• Do you know how each cell of a human body holds (in a sense) the whole pattern of the body but is just bent to one form, one specific purpose? That is this book, but the cells are chapters. Note that this carries benefits and drawbacks

(based on one’s perspective/purpose), and also imperfections in both biology and book reading.

• Can you recall how a good theory—take that of evolution by natural selection, for instance—helps make plain all of the(thereafter)obvioussignsofitsimportanceandmerit,signsthatnotonlyfailedtomakesensebutfailedtoattract

your attention at all prior to your exposure to the theory? That is this book—and that is meeting science (which is

not a theory but contains multitudes). It is all of the consciousness-raising experiences that you would get out of a

Dawkins book without any of the, you know, mean-spirited overtones.

That pretty much sums it up, actually, but let us move now to more concrete language—and to some of the subtlety

involved.

FOR WHOM IS THE BOOK INTENDED? HOW SHOULD THEY USE IT?

Summary: Everyone who participates in meetings, practitioners (but these two groups only need parts of the book), and

researchers (read the whole thing—even the practitioner-focused bits).

Long story: Ah! This is the fun bit. There are two main categories of answers to these questions; the first contains

pretty much everyone who can read English and the second differentiates between various foci. Let us dive in:

Most of the chapters start with some justification of why meetings are important and expensive and such; I could

write such a section by heart at this point (was that their intention?). We do not need this, though, to see the utility

of the contents of the book for ourselves: We all attend/plan/facilitate meetings, to greater or lesser extents. As my

mind wandered while reading, it drifted to the university senate meetings in which I participate, to the consulting-team

meetings that I oversee, to the research-assistant and SIOP-committee meetings that I run. There are plenty of oppor-

tunities to immediately reflect on the difficulties, the subtle phenomena, the techniques contained within the pages. If

you, like me, would prefer your techniques to be bound in something under the auspices of Cambridge University Press

(authoritative, no?) rather than relying on the spin of the wheel on Amazon (there should be a “charlatan” filter option),

then you are going to want to pick this thing up. You will be able to pick and choose chapters, no doubt—your mileage

may vary based on your role and needs—but I recommend chapters 30, 26, 4, and 5 (and that you stay well clear of, e.g.,

chapter 22).

Practitioners–consultants who, like the author of chapter 30, work with organizations in and around meetings—will

find a similar list of chapters helpful. They may want to expand their reading to nearby theoretical frameworks, but a

BOOK REVIEWS 511

full-in dive should be requisitely undertaken only by those who want to understand the CRAP out of what we know

(and do not know) about meetings and what areas are fruitful for additional research.

ARE THE CHAPTERS WELL AUTHORED?

Yes! They are authored from various perspectives and with various tones (see above about audience–content pairings),

but they each add to the overall framework. I am sensitive to the difficulty of writing a chapter for a compendium and

getting it to fit nicely into the whole of the work; some chapters do this well (chapter 31 startlingly so) and others skirt

the issue by referring not to works within the volume but without.

Some authors write in a manner that is more congruent with their stated purpose and/or clear conveyance (read:

congruent with my preferred style) than do others; chapters 11, 22, and 25 would be in this way disheartening to a

reader who judged the whole book from those examples.

Ah, and I am not an expert in anything involved in this book, but even so I take exception to some of the tones that

authors strike—the, from my perspective, confounding of actual differences with ideal conditions (see, for example,

chapter 7 and page 196 in chapter 9), for instance, is an unacknowledged preference where other viable preferences

areavailable.But!Thisnevercameacrossasadefinitivebidforonepositionoveranother—itsimplystatedoneposition

and left another for the reader to insert, so if you are adequately on your guard you will be fine.

Speaking of my lacking expertise—the authors/editors knew their audience (pretty much “us”) well and when it was

clear that the reader would need education in a specific technique/field, education was provided (see chapters 12 and

13, for instance). Speaking of editors:

IS THE WORK WELL EDITED?

Editing involves many different functions—inviting contributors, laying out the work, formatting and copyediting—and

overall, I think that I am picking up what the editors are laying down. There are a few jarring inconsistencies—are there

11 million meetings/day (p. 23) or 25 million (p. 15), and why the discrepancy?—and a typo or two, some of which—like

the 51-minute-late claim on p. 183—matter, and some of which—like my favorite neologism “investigage” (p. 283)—do

not, but silliness aside, I found no revealing flaws; later chapters help the reader appreciate the ambiguity in even the

apparent facts available to us (Kello’s chapter 30 really does a lot of heavy lifting in this realm).

Ah, but the in-it-for-keeps reader may come away puzzled at some of the apparent contradictions and

redundancies—chapters 7 and 9 are at once somewhat redundant and contradictory (chapter 9 does not play well

with 7); 27 is, to my view, largely redundant to chapter 26—but one reading charitably will see this as taking multiple

approaches to the same topic matter and as an enrichment of perspectives rather than as wasted pages.

Order: I’d have put chapter 2 at the start before chapter 1 and chapter 31 is a great “gotcha!” that the reader should

probably examine at the start rather than at the end of the journey, but overall, it was a tall order to organize all of

the chapters and the structure is reasonable. I appreciate how the cross-cultural/diversity content is delivered early

in the book so as to attenuate one’s certainty throughout the rest of the content—leading to the opportunity for the

reader to, for example, cross chapter 7’s cross-cultural perspective with chapter 13’s conversation-analysis content to

generate novel research questions.

Overall, I assigned the book to one of my RAs as an example of how myriad perspectives can be brought together if

not harmoniously then at least respectfully and without jarring the reader. That is impressive in as cross disciplinary a

work as this.

IS THIS A TEAMS BOOK?

I nearly forgot to mention my biggest concern—and one explicitly acknowledge in the work—that this would just be old

teams research dressed up in shiny new, um, attire. A few chapters in, I was still concerned (chapter 6 in particular feels

like a stretch). By the end, though, I was no longer concerned. Meeting science is young and amorphous and in need of

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great theoretical, empirical, practical, cross-disciplinary work, but (a) this was made clear within the work, not through

my inference, and (b) meeting science is, I am convinced, a thing—and a thing that deserves our attention. This is a great

way to start guiding your attention to it, and I thank the editors and authors for making it available to us!

Steven Toaddy

Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences,

Louisiana Tech University,

Ruston, LA.

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